Essay Writing for Law?

stainluss

I understand that there is a lot of essay writing involved.

How good would you need to be at English to cope with this?
(i.e. What sort of grade would you need to be getting in HL English? A1's?B1's?

muffinman

You need to have quite a good command of English to write these essays but the part of essay writing that many struggle with is the research.. Prepare to spend hours in the library reading pages of reports, cases and legislation..

lemon_sherbert

I would think as long as you are in the B range you will have a sufficient ability. It is more to do with fluency of the use of language than any incredible abilities of style or poetry analysis. Good functional use of English is enough, in my experience, if you are a particularly good writer it may be an advantage, but I would agree with muffinman, the ability to research is much more important. That's something you can learn in college, so don't stress too much.

If you are able to get the points then you will have no problem. Law is like another language. During first year students realize that what worked for them discussing Shakespeare is not what is required and they change. Law with French Law is a good example where fluent french speakers are given an entirely new vocabulary.

You can get through pretty much every exam by just doing the problem questions which are just as akin to maths as they are english. The essays you write at home are unlike anything in Leaving Cert English as they are based in citation and quite mechanical in their communication. I don't mean to say there isn't an art to it but it is very far from any iambic pentameter and doesn't care in the least about alliteration or such.

stainluss

Deleted User wrote: »

If you are able to get the points then you will have no problem. Law is like another language. During first year students realize that what worked for them discussing Shakespeare is not what is required and they change. Law with French Law is a good example where fluent french speakers are given an entirely new vocabulary.

You can get through pretty much every exam by just doing the problem questions which are just as akin to maths as they are english. The essays you write at home are unlike anything in Leaving Cert English as they are based in citation and quite mechanical in their communication. I don't mean to say there isn't an art to it but it is very far from any iambic pentameter and doesn't care in the least about alliteration or such.

So would there be any marks going for use of 'fancy' words from the english language, or just for the use of 'fancy' words from black's law dictionary?

Its called a 'term of art' when a word has a special meaning in a legal sense as distinct from its everyday use.

Take for example you write an essy on the Irish Constitution. Firstly, that does not refer to the Irish capacity to drink voluminous quantities of alcohol and remain presentable. Secondly, and this comes back to your original question, if the issue that you are addressing is whether there has been a violation of a right under the Constitution then it does not matter if the word violation is in every other sentence. In an English essay you would try to swap it up with other words like infringement or breach but, in a law essay, by doing that you are implying that there is a distinction between the words by using different ones. So, in a mathematical sense, where x=x you always use x and if you use anything else then it will be read as though you do not necessarily mean x.